Welcome to DBSTalk

Welcome to DBSTalk. Our community covers all aspects of video delivery solutions including: Direct Broadcast Satellite (DBS), Cable Television, and Internet Protocol Television (IPTV). We also have forums to discuss popular television programs, home theater equipment, and internet streaming service providers. Members of our community include experts who can help you solve technical problems, industry professionals, company representatives, and novices who are here to learn.

Like most online communities you must register to view or post in our community. Sign-up is a free and simple process that requires minimal information. Be a part of our community by signing in or creating an account. The Digital Bit Stream starts here!

I just received a "Come Back to Dish" promo in the mail today. I would normally not have even opened the thing but today... Hmmm... Now I'm beginning to think it may just be easier to try Dish Network again for a couple of years.... Maybe that will give DirecTV time to work on their firmware. It at least has me looking into the Dish forums here to see what kind of trouble people are having with Dish Network.

I suspect most forums are biased to the "problems side" of the equation. If things are working great, you may not be inclined to post that. However, if you have problems, you're always looking for help. My neighbor has the Hopper and said he's ready to throw it out into the street. But I bet there are a lot of happy Hopper and HR34 users. That's not saying DTV doesn't have some work to do. They drive me crazy at times with their changes but I wonder if the Dish design team is any better.

But I'll agree with one thought, my DTV receivers appear slow compared to what I have seen on Dish. DTV has to focus on resolving this issue and quickly.

Forums may skew a little towards the problem side (~10-15% more), but some people in this forum who don't have problems tend to assume that the only people who have problems are people who post in this forum. The truth isn't even really in the middle -- a lot of people are having problems who don't post here. Usually in the CSR meetings I went to (for another company) I could tell what they're going to list as the hot button issues if any just by viewing a few forums ahead of time. If it's a hot topic in Internet forums then the CSRs would always complain they have been "swamped with tons of calls".

Also note there are many lurkers here who come here just to make sure it's not just them, but they don't bother to post anything because it won't help.

I have five friends who have D*, and every single one of them complains about the sluggishness of the receivers and DVRs, and none of them knew this forum existed until I told them. All have problems very similar to mine or Mike Greer's, and are looking to jump ship but are scared of jumping from the frying pan into the fire. All I can tell them is that the FIOS 7232 and TWC Cisco DVRs have no speed problems like D* has. Other issues, certainly, but at least you can always control the box.

They have told me (well, the CMG has told me, I can't take the NEW CSRs that do the PP now) that every effort will be made to provide a PP member with a 24 when a 24 goes bad. Retention has told me the same thing. And, every time I've had a 24 go bad, I've gotten a 24 as a replacement.

In all honesty, my 3 HD DVRs that are all HR24 or newer models here all perform quite fast.

That said, there have been times in the past where this was not the case when the firmware was maturing and/or they added functionality. There's also little doubt that the User Interface is not "peaked" yet on all HD DVR models. Speed improvements still need to happen so this is more uniform across all model devices.

At times in the past having read some of your posts in the past, I also wondered if they had some "special" HD DVRs just made especially for you.

But seriously...

There are a number of things that impact performance as others have pointed out - beyond just a firmware version:

1) How does someone have their DVR devices configured? (There are numerous things that impact performance - just one example - if you select all channels, Channels I get, or custom channels you identify - these changes the scope of search within the favorites setting, and may impact guide performance somewhat. There are also literally thousands of potential setting combinations, so of which are known to slow things down in the UI. I've seen more people shoot themselves in the foot on settings than almost any other item when it comes to performance.)

2) Is someone using the "stock" hard drive in the device, an eSata setup, or something else (for owned hardware)? We've seen various posts where people indicate slow WHDS/MRV viewing, only to learn later those same folks installed cheap hard drives w/slow read-write speeds and small memory caches. These slow down the viewing experience. There's a new generation of hardware for the past 12-18 months for HDD's specifically designed for HD DVRs, and these are found in the newer DirecTV models - these make a difference.

3) DECA/Internet connections - routers, DECA connections, and network speed. As more and more of the viewer experience is "connected" - the dependence on adequate network speed grows. The DECA infrastructure helps a great deal in this regard. Also, router and network speed impact things to a degree as well.

Last but not least...as you also said...it's important to note that folks can read just as many posts in the Dish threads about performance and hardware as in the DirecTV threads - sometimes more of them. I contend that not all "boxes" are identical in build quality. That's true for almost any technology. If someone gets a "bad one", they should insist on a replacement.

Here's to wishing you improved results soon...

In all honesty, your 3 HD DVRs that are all HR24 or newer models all perform quite fast but not as fast as Dish Network DVRs do.

I do believe they are 'fast enough' for you but I would prefer to the response of the Dish Network receivers (including the 5 or 6 year old ones) over the sometimes quick/sometimes not HR24.

I'm happy that you're happy with the speed of yours but there are few people that would/could argue that they are as fast as Dish Network receivers.... Ever...

I honestly don't think there is much if any difference in performance between my two working HR24s than your HR24s all settings being the same. I'm not including my 10 days to restart HR24....

I have seen somewhere around 30 HR receivers at friends, retail stores and even a couple of dealers that have both DirecTV and Dish equipment side-by-side. I have never seen ANY DirecTV DVR as fast as ANY Dish Network DVR period. My HR24-500s came close, in fact, close enough to Dish Network speed. That is until the HD GUI 'upgrade'. Navigation and response is now back to the sometimes ok - sometimes not ok with my two working HR24s... But still much better than the complete trash I had with the HR22s....

Thanks for wishing me improved results soon.... I'm sure they will eventually figure out their problems but sadly - they'll do another 'upgrade' and many of the problems we have been cycling through will once again come back. Just like the Jump-To-The-End problem when using 30 second skip/slip has started creeping back in now.

At times in the past having read some of your posts in the past, I also wondered if they had some "special" HD DVRs just made especially for you.

That was funny! I've wondered about the same thing. I believe I even had something like that done to me in my first or second year. Over a 2 or 3 week period, I had ~ 15 HR20-100s delivered to my home to replace a 20-700 that had gone bad. Several were in pieces when they arrived and none worked. I'm not paranoid by nature, but I think someone said, "Keep sending that PITA 20-100s, we'll teach him a lesson".

As a former DirecTV customer who "enjoyed" a 2-year contract stuck with an HR22-100, I check back in occasionally to see if my reasons for leaving DirecTV have been resolved. Threads like this convince me that they have not.

I've been pretty vocal about my problems with the Hopper. But most of those problems are minor, and they have been resolved within a week or so with a new firmware update. Yes, that's right - no living for months with a non-responsive unit and promises that "the next firmware release will fix this problem." I've gotten direct contact from Dish team members to help me with my issues that I've posted on DBSTalk, and all those issues have been resolved in a timely manner.

I know some of you are going to complain, "What's a Dish customer doing reading DirecTV forums?" And to be honest, in some ways, I miss DirecTV. I think DirecTV has slightly better HD picture quality. I like that DirecTV's OTA tuner has 2 tuners instead of one. And I like the fact that if you play "catchup" with a program while it's being recorded, the DVR remembers where you stopped when you come back later (there's a workaround for that issue, but it's one I sometimes forget until it's too late.) And DirecTV hits my email inbox at least once a day with promises to "make it right" if I'll just come back.

The grass isn't greener over at Dish, but it's a different shade of green, and some people will prefer one shade over the other.

Agreed! I also miss having the remote RF and IR simultaneously. And working caller id too!

They have told me...that every effort will be made to provide a PP member with a 24 when a 24 goes bad. Retention has told me the same thing. And, every time I've had a 24 go bad, I've gotten a 24 as a replacement.

Rich

Seems your firsthand experience differs from a Dish poster claiming differently based on their "reading about it" knowledge.

As a former DirecTV customer who "enjoyed" a 2-year contract stuck with an HR22-100, I check back in occasionally to see if my reasons for leaving DirecTV have been resolved. Threads like this convince me that they have not.

I've been pretty vocal about my problems with the Hopper. But most of those problems are minor, and they have been resolved within a week or so with a new firmware update. Yes, that's right - no living for months with a non-responsive unit and promises that "the next firmware release will fix this problem." I've gotten direct contact from Dish team members to help me with my issues that I've posted on DBSTalk, and all those issues have been resolved in a timely manner.

I know some of you are going to complain, "What's a Dish customer doing reading DirecTV forums?" And to be honest, in some ways, I miss DirecTV. I think DirecTV has slightly better HD picture quality. I like that DirecTV's OTA tuner has 2 tuners instead of one. And I like the fact that if you play "catchup" with a program while it's being recorded, the DVR remembers where you stopped when you come back later (there's a workaround for that issue, but it's one I sometimes forget until it's too late.) And DirecTV hits my email inbox at least once a day with promises to "make it right" if I'll just come back.

The grass isn't greener over at Dish, but it's a different shade of green, and some people will prefer one shade over the other.

Why did you put up with a 22 for that long? I had one that worked splendidly for a week and then lost its mind. I quickly got a replacement for it and vowed to never take a 22 again. They are not all the same, the 24s work quite well and are as fast as any DVR I've ever had.

Not really...since the User Interface and other firmware changes are made...they can change as well. But some are somewhat intuitive.

For example...if you ask the HD DVR to look up your guide containing "favorites" containing a custom (and smaller) list that doesn't include all the channels...it's less work for the DVR to load and present them on the screen.

Also, if you select "native" for the HD resolution instead of a pre-assigned setting...then then DVR doesn't need to adjust for channel-specific-settings when you happen to change channels.

Since both of those are user configuration preferences...it's up to the end user how they want those things set up.

The key point is that configuration choices can impact the viewing experience.

Creating smaller customs guides does in fact speed things up...

The native thing is actually the other way around. If you select 'native' it will make channel changes that include resolution changes take much longer. Maybe worth the wait if your TV does better up-scaling than the HR does...

The native thing is actually the other way around. If you select 'native' it will make channel changes that include resolution changes take much longer. Maybe worth the wait if your TV does better up-scaling than the HR does...

They have told me (well, the CMG has told me, I can't take the NEW CSRs that do the PP now) that every effort will be made to provide a PP member with a 24 when a 24 goes bad. Retention has told me the same thing. And, every time I've had a 24 go bad, I've gotten a 24 as a replacement.

Seems your firsthand experience differs from a Dish poster claiming differently based on their "reading about it" knowledge.

Yours is not the first confirming this either.

Thanks for sharing some facts.

I don't recall ever being lied to by anyone at the CMG. I can't say that about other D* CSRs, but when one does, I go straight to Retention and get it resolved to my satisfaction. Persistence and patience and politeness always seems to work.